Four questions that get to the heart of a culture
I recently had a conversation with a leader who shared something so brilliant that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.
He told me that at one point in his career, he was responsible for leading multiple locations within a global organization. Because he was leading so many people across many different sites, he found it difficult to gauge how the culture of each one was doing.
That is . . . until he learned about these four powerful questions.
Anytime he made a site visit, he said, he would ask a few people there these questions, and their answers were very revealing. Taken together, they quickly painted a picture of the health of the culture of that location.
Here they are:
Do you know why you do what you do?
Do you know how your success is measured?
Do you know how you're going to get better at what you do?
Does anybody here care about you?
After our conversation, I couldn’t stop thinking about these questions, so I wrote about them on social media. The questions really resonated with people, and I think it’s because they get right to the heart of what culture is really about.
Today, I thought I could dive a little deeper into each one and share how we focus on these areas in my own company’s culture!
Here we go . . .
Question #1: Do you know why you do what you do?
To me, this is the most important question. It's about purpose and understanding how your role fits into the bigger picture. It gives people a reason to show up every day.
I think we did this well at Student Maid, my first company. What we did was clean houses. But why we did it was to provide our team members—who were mostly college students—a place to learn and grow as leaders. Our teams had no supervisors standing over their shoulders as they worked, so it was up to them to work well together, problem-solve, interact with customers, and manage their time. We hosted leadership trainings where we taught them the skills they really need to thrive: listening, giving and receiving feedback, building relationships with empathy and curiosity. If you would have asked any of our students the “why” behind their role at Student Maid, they probably wouldn’t have mentioned scrubbing floors. Instead, they would’ve said something like, “I’m here to learn how to be a leader.” I think this shows that no matter what industry you’re in or what role someone holds, you can always connect a person’s work to a bigger purpose.
Looking for a simple next step here? Incorporate “why” moments into your weekly team meetings. Have a space on your agenda where people can share stories that remind them why they do what they do in order to keep this front and center. On our team, we have a Slack channel where we post our “why” moments, which are often the stories and feedback we get from people (like you!). When we have one, whether it's a response to a blog post, a social media message, or an in-person interaction at an event, we share them in this channel to remind each other why we’re working toward building a more human world at work.
Question #2: Do you know how your success is measured?
Early in my leadership journey, I read The Three Signs of a Miserable Job by Patrick Lencioni. The book is a fable about a struggling fictional pizza shop, where a new owner has just come in to try to turn it around.
In the fable, the new owner notices that the person working at the cash register is disengaged and unhappy—the last thing you want for a front-of-house position. The owner realizes that part of the reason is that this person has no way to measure success in their role.
The owner decides to challenge the cashier to start counting how many smiles they get from customers each day with the goal of increasing the number every day. The cashier becomes excited to have something to work toward, and they shift from disengaged to inspired.
When I read this book in the early days of Student Maid, I immediately wanted to find a way for our team members to measure their success. That led to the creation of our performance-based pay structure: After every cleaning, we sent our clients a survey and asked them to give it a rating. We then shared the rating and any feedback we got with our team members. If they got an “above-and-beyond,” for example, they would get a bonus for that service. It really worked for us because every person felt empowered to own their success and learn from their mistakes.
In cases where we don’t have quantifiable metrics for success, it’s even more important to make sure people know how to measure their efforts. A few months ago, I told you about a series of tough conversations I had with Monique, my right hand in our business. Those conversations centered on the fact that the measures of success for Monique’s role weren’t clearly defined—which was my fault—and it caused frustration for both of us. Monique and I have worked closely together for well over a decade; it just goes to show that no matter how long you’ve worked with someone, it's important to keep having these conversations.
In our company today, we’ve made it so that each member of our team has access to every metric we track, financial and otherwise. We each know which ones we’re responsible for, and we can check on our progress at any time so we can see how our actions impact the bigger picture and how we can influence those results.
Question #3: Do you know how you are going to get better at what you do?
At the end of the day, if we are giving so much of our time to help an organization grow, we want to know that we are growing, too.
On our team, we have what we call a “learning budget.” My team knows that if they want to take a class or learn a new skill, we have a budget for that that they can use anytime. Not everyone has taken advantage of it, but I make sure that the resources are always available if they do.
One of the best habits for growth we’ve built as a team is our quarterly 360 review. We use the Keeps and Considers method: Each person shares something they think they’re doing well and should keep doing and something they think they should consider doing differently. Then, we each give each other feedback on what we’ve shared and, if we have them, we share our ideas for things our teammates should both keep doing and consider doing differently. Our 360s are a great opportunity to help each other identify ways to keep elevating.
Question #4: Does anyone here care about you?
The thought of anyone answering “no” to this question makes me so sad. And yet, I know many people would answer this way: Last year, Gallup said that 1 in 5 people reported feeling lonely at work. This devastates me because we spend so much time at work. I believe it should be one of the places where we feel the most cared for.
If we want to change this, we need to build a habit of connection. Our team begins every meeting with something called the “1-10 Check-In.” It works like this: Each person shares a score on a scale of 1-10 for how they are doing at work and outside of it, respectively. We invite people to share the reasons behind their scores and take time to connect on a human level before we dive into our agenda. The check-in gives people an opportunity to say out loud how they’re feeling and give context for why they’re showing up the way they are that week. It gives us all a chance to get to know each other better and offer extra support when someone is going through a hard time.
We are also big fans of the Appreciation Languages. This is Gary Chapman’s work, and it’s so powerful. The idea is that the more you can understand a person’s Appreciation Language, the more you can ensure your actions make them feel valued. On our team, we’ve each taken the Appreciation Languages assessment so that we know what matters most to each person. When someone is having a tough day, we know exactly what to do to lift them up.
None of these things take a ton of time. When it comes to building a great culture, it’s not about how much time you invest; it’s about making the time you already have with people count.
There you have it! What do you think about these four questions? How might someone on your team answer them? How would you answer them? I would love to know which of these questions resonates most with you and why. Hit reply and tell me more! My team and I love reading your responses.
Big hugs,
